While some in the fashion media have been fixating on the growing importance of editorial coverage by young bloggers, relatively little has been said about a broader democratisation that’s happening in the fashion industry overall. For one thing, runway knock-offs — formerly a marginal industry — have become a borderline acceptable business practice, with stores such as Zara and Forever 21 building successful franchises by copycatting high fashion designs. In a sense, fast fashion collaborations such as Jimmy Choo for H&M or Rodarte for Target seem to legitimise this practice.

This is a quote from a recent article on the effects of fashion’s democratization from the website The Business of Fashion. Unfortunately, Ken Miller (the writer) doesn’t examine the changing meanings of knock-offs in this era of democratization or analyze which knock-offs are acceptable and which aren’t (and why) in the context of the emerging creative economy. Nonetheless, I’m intrigued by the relationship he’s suggesting between cheap chic fashion retailers like H&M and Target and the industry of legitimate knock-offs. Who authorizes this legitimacy? And what are the conditions of cultural legitimation?